The Calligrapher — Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之

The 'Sage of Calligraphy'; his running script has set the standard for 1,700 years.

Eastern Jin calligrapher (303–361), master of running script/cursive script/regular script — the Sage of Calligraphy; his Orchid Pavilion Preface is the most celebrated work in the tradition, and nearly every later master traces lineage to his hand. Eastern Jin dynasty

Cultural Story

洪 means a great, swelling flood; the 說文 gives a flood. The 洪水 of Yao's time tested the sage kings. A 洪亮 voice commands the hall. Myths open in 洪荒 time, before heaven and earth were neatly formed and named by humankind.

Common words & phrases

• 洪水 flood · floodwater
• 洪大 vast · great
• 洪亮 loud · sonorous
• 洪涝 flood · flooding
• 洪荒 primeval · chaos

Read the story behind the character

洪水 (flood) swept the village after the storm. The singer's 洪亮 (loud, sonorous) voice filled the arena. 洪涝 (flooding) delayed the trains for days. The project has 洪大 (vast, great) ambitions. The film begins in 洪荒 (primeval, chaos), with fire and rising water.

Why this character belongs on skin

Some forces are too large to be opposed, only survived and then praised. 洪 joins water with together, the great flood, the vast surge that levels the proud and waters the plain. The ancient myth tells of Yu who tamed the deluge not by blocking it but by yielding it channels, the wisdom of the one who works with the enormous. The Daoist sees it as the flood of the Tao itself, inexhaustible, indifferent, generous to the point of ruin. To wear this is to honor the immense in yourself and the world: the grief that came all at once, the love that overflowed its banks, the ambition no small life could contain. Ink it across the back or down the side, where a tide would run. Let it say you have stood in the flood and were not erased, that you carry a magnitude the careful people cannot imagine, and that what overwhelms others is, in you, merely the weather of who you are.